(eng) Alan Burt Akers - Dray Prescot 13 by Renegade of Kregen

Author:Renegade of Kregen [Kregen, Renegade of]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

The Golden Chavonth leads us a dance

The two swifters leaped across the last gap of water at each other like sea-leems. The answer to the question that formed in my mind was: Of course I damned well could! I was an old mercenary, an old reiver. When men sought to slay me no matter who they were — by the Black Chunkrah! — I’d slay them first! And there was the green standard of my Lady of the Stars to consider. Was a man’s life, the life of a Brother Krozair of Zy, worth more or less than a scrap of green silk given into my care by a girl? How could such idiotic and callous thoughts even occur to me? Had this girl, this beloved of Gafard, this Lady of the Stars, addled my wits?

There had to be a way — a way of honor.

The arrows rained down about me now and I cursed the stupidity of the men of the inner sea, no less than of Vallia and Segesthes, that they despised the shield as the coward’s artifice. Turko the Shield should be with me now, his great shield upraised, deflecting the arrow storm. I flicked away two arrows that would have pierced me.

An officer at my side, a Chulik mercenary and a man with long experience in artillery, in command of the bow varters, coughed gently to himself. He pulled an arrow from his arm where the keen steel head had bitten clean through his mail. He threw the two halves to the deck, with a Chulik curse. The gap of blue sea between those two closing rams narrowed with dreadful rapidity. I stared wolfishly at the Red swifter. She was two-banked and the two tiers were set closely together. Her beam appeared broader than I would have thought necessary. I could see the heads of the men clustered abaft her forward breastwork, across the forecastle. The beak remained aloft, ready to drop down if her captain chose to board. Our beak likewise remained lifted. Both captains considered this to be ram work.

How quick would Gafard be?

He was a fine swifter captain — he must of necessity be so to have earned his reputation. He was called the Sea-Zhantil, a name taken from the Zairians, a name taken from the renowned Krozair, the Lord of Strombor. He measured himself against that long-dead Krozair, did Gafard. Whatever Pur Dray had done, Gafard, the King’s Striker, would do better — or die in the attempt. The hail from aft reached me attenuated and thin. The breeze had almost died after the rashoon. The order of command from the Red swifter reached me as clearly.

Both swifters hauled out, spinning. I had thought the Zairian would try the diekplus, the maneuver in which the attacking swifter abruptly swivels and turns so as to smash her ram hard against the leading oars and the apostis forward frame, what the Ancient Greeks called the epotis. As I have said, in the swifters

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